When You Go
by clair beaubien
Summary: Set in my Brothers of Mercy Universe. Vin gets into a fight outside a church. Chris has to find out what's going on.


A/N: quote at the end is from "Love Will" by the Forester Sisters

* * *

"Aw hell, who called you?"

Chris walked into the casting room of the County Hospital ER where Vin sat battered, casted, and belligerent. With a black eye, cracked cheekbone, a swollen busted lip and enough bruises to take up half of his face, Vin looked like the loser of a bare knuckle boxing match.

"Nice to see you too." Chris said.

"I mean it, who called you? That officer, what's his name, Lamb, Bland, whatever, said he's gonna arrange a ride for me."

Chris raised an eyebrow, both to answer the question, and to question the angry tone in Vin's voice.

"Officer Blanding, and he _did_ arrange you a ride. _Me_."

"How's he know _you_?"

"He volunteers at the shelter."

"Aw hell." Vin said again.

"The rest of you look this bad?" Chris asked, gesturing to Vin's torn clothing, and his right arm in a blue cast and hospital-gray sling.

"Not so's they told me. Well, if you're my ride, let's get out of here."

"You want a wheelchair?"

"I don't know – are my legs broke?"

"Come on funny guy." Chris said. "Let's get you home."

He stood out of the way as Vin slid off the gurney and stood up, not quite all the way upright. Vin winced and held his breath for a second before shuffling his slow way out of the Emergency Room and to the parking lot.

"I'll bring my car up."

"Don't do anything special on my account." Vin said. His voice sounded tight.

"Are you in a genuine bad mood, or is that the painkillers talking?"

"Visiting the hospital tends to spoil a perfectly good Friday, that's all. I got better things I could be doing."

"Like getting your head handed to you by an overgrown bully outside a church? What were you doing there anyway?" The automatic door swished open and Chris stood there to hold it open until Vin was outside.

"None of your damn business, that's what I was doing there." He said it good-naturedly, but Chris sensed some aggravation there too.

"Wait here until I bring the car over. Try not to scare any small children before I get back."

"Ha ha."

It didn't take long to drive up. When Chris got there, Vin was wincing again and had his left hand pressed against his chest.

"You OK? You need to go back inside?" Chris asked, worried.

"No, I'm fine." Vin shook his head. He didn't open his eyes until Chris stood beside him. "Can we go now?" he asked.

"You sure you're OK?"

"Yeah." Vin answered, but he didn't look at Chris when he said it. "I want to go home."

*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*7*

'Home' for Vin Tanner was the left half of a narrow duplex in a so-so neighborhood. Chris pulled into the driveway.

"Is your truck still at the church?" he asked.

"Yeah. Officer can't-mind-his-own-business took me to the ER in his squad car."

"Well, we'll arrange to get it later."

"Okay." Vin opened the car door, but stopped before getting out. "You wanna come in? You musta missed lunch, coming to get me like that. I got some of that self rising pizza and that diet 7-Up you like."

Chris had a list an arm's length long of things he still needed to get done today, but he nodded.

"Sounds good."

Vin walked as stiffly into his house as he had walked out of the hospital. It was a small apartment, with the front room running into the kitchen with no break but the difference between carpet and linoleum. The stairs that led to the single bedroom and bathroom upstairs were right inside the front door.

"Why don't you go up and get changed, I'll get lunch started." Chris said. Vin nodded his thanks and went upstairs.

Chris went into the kitchen and pulled open the freezer to take out the pizza. Taped onto the refrigerator door was an obituary from the newspaper and Chris gave it a quick glance while waiting for the oven to preheat.

It concerned a widow, Emily Tuttle, age 76. She was an accomplished pianist, loved country music, had worked for the governor before her marriage, and was much beloved by all the foster children she'd taken into her home. Her death had come after a brief hospitalization for an unspecified illness.

The stove buzzed that the preheating was done and Chris set the pizza on its pan on the rack. Vin came back downstairs and stopped in the front room to call his pharmacy about the prescription for painkillers he'd gotten at the ER, then he came into the kitchen. He'd changed his shirt.

"How's your arm?" Chris asked.

"Aches some. I'll live."

Vin walked to the fridge and pulled down the obituary notice to shove it into his pocket. He opened the door and leaned in to pull out two bottles of 7-Up one handed. He gave one to Chris and sat down at the table with his own.

Chris sat at the table across from him and after opening his own bottle of soda pop, reached over and opened Vin's as well.

"Thanks." Vin said, but he didn't take a drink.

"So," Chris started. "Either one of you pressing charges?"

"No."

"You wanna tell me how it started?"

"No."

"Okay. You wanna tell me how it ended?"

Vin took a deep breath before answering, and his answer surprised Chris.

"He walked away." He took a swallow of his soda pop then and fiddled with his sling.

"And somebody called Officer Blanding." Chris said.

"No, he was there already."

"Vin – we could do this all day. What is it you're having such a hard time telling me?"

"She was my foster mother." Vin said, so quietly that Chris almost missed it. "One of 'em anyway. "She was the last one I had before I was on my own."

"You were at her funeral." Chris thought of the obituary on the fridge.

"Yeah."

"So what started the fight?"

_"He was alive and in my world."_ Vin answered. He sounded bitter.

"You know him." Chris said.

Vin pressed his good hand against his damaged cheek and seemed to think about it before nodding.

"We were in a home together for awhile, a year or a little less."

"With the lady who died?"

"No, not with Em. Not together anyway. He musta been there before me, he's a couple years older than me. She took in kids who were on their way outta the system. Helped 'em finish growing up before they turned eighteen and were out on their own."

Chris wanted to say that eighteen years old wasn't grown up, but he didn't say it. Looking at his battered friend sitting before him, he wasn't sure twenty-eight could be called all that grown up either.

"So what happened?"

"He told me if I didn't watch out they'd put me into the hospital for electroshock therapy and that when they did that I'd be able to smell my brains frying."

Vin was staring down at the floor so Chris couldn't see his eyes to tell if he was joking or what.

"He told you that at the church?"

"No – at the home." Vin answered, surprised. "No, not at the church. No, at the church he – no, he told me at the home we were both at. They had a thing, a – what d'you call it? Bug zapper? They had a bug zapper out on the porch and whenever some poor bug fried on that thing, he'd say, 'that's what they're gonna do to you.'"

"So, when you saw him at the church -?"

"Nothing." Vin said.

"'Nothing' doesn't leave you looking like road kill."

But Vin only got up from the table and pulled plates out of the dish rack. Chris swallowed some more 7-Up.

"What was she like?"

"Who?" Vin asked as he set the plates onto the table, and then went back for knives and forks.

"Your foster mother."

"Em? She was nice. She was real nice. She made me feel special, you know? Like I was the only kid she ever had. She was real nice."

"How long were you with her?"

"Seventeen months. Until my eighteenth birthday."

"You keep in touch with her?"

"Uh, no. Sort of. Not in a while."

"Since you turned eighteen?"

"Yeah. A couple times. You know, Christmas cards."

"A couple Christmas cards in ten years." Chris said. "That's all?"

Vin shrugged one shoulder. "No, more than that. I'd send her notes, she'd call me. We'd go to dinner sometimes. It's just not like I had a lot to tell her. Not much going on in my life I was proud of. I never wanted her to know I was homeless."

"Still -." But Chris stopped there. No point in pushing it when the poor lady was dead and there was no way to get the time back. "Did you know she was sick?"

"Yeah." Vin said, then changed his mind. "No. Kinda. I guess." He set out the silverware then took his chair again.

"You didn't go see her in the hospital?"

"_I did_." Vin sounded like he was challenging it. "I did go see her. I went to the hospital last weekend."

"She must've been glad to see you."

"No. I mean – she didn't know I was there. I didn't go into her room."

"Why not?"

"Because." But Vin said it down to the table and his empty plate.

"He was there?" Chris guessed. "The guy who picked a fight with you this morning?"

But Vin didn't answer and he didn't look up from the table. Chris didn't want to push him, or appear to be pushing him, so he left the table to check the progress of the frozen pizza that still had fifteen minutes left to cook.

"He didn't start it. " Vin admitted.

"Who did?"

"_Who do you think_?"

"He must've done something to set you off." Chris tried. In the three or so years they'd been friends he'd seen Vin angry plenty of times, but he'd never seen him lose his temper.

"He was alive and in my world." Vin said in a tired voice.

"There's got to be more to it than that."

"Nope, that's all. He was there. He was at Em's funeral and I hated him for it."

"_Hate_?" That was a strong word for Vin. Sure, he hated tailgaters, worthless politicians and liverwurst, but to hear him say he hated a specific person was beyond rare.

"He was always mean to me when I knew him." Vin said. "He made me feel like I wasn't worth anything. I saw him there and I just - I just wanted to stop feeling like that little kid he could terrorize and nobody ever stopped him. Just once I wanted -." But he didn't go on.

Chris sat at the table again and looked at all the damage done to Vin.

"Well if you started it, you must've been pretty riled to generate _this_ response." He gestured to the bruises and broken bones.

Vin started to shake, Chris could see it, he began to tremble and he bent his head down to cover his eyes with his good hand. Chris thought he should leave the table maybe, give Vin some privacy. But as he stood up, Vin took in a sharp breath, like he was trying not to break down, and Chris walked to stand behind him.

"_All right_." He said softly, and put his hands on Vin's shoulders. "_All right_."

From experience Chris knew that it was better if Vin would just let himself cry, and for a minute he did, sitting at the table, letting Chris keep his hands on his shoulders. Then he pushed his chair back and said, '_excuse me'_ when he hit Chris' foot, and went upstairs.

Chris took his chair again and drank some more 7Up. Every good and wise thing he could say to Vin right now would probably only make things worse. It was hard enough not to get to say goodbye to someone you loved; it was a hundred times harder when you knew you'd blown your chance. So he waited at the table to see how things progressed.

After awhile his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID.

"Hello, Josiah."

"Hey, Chris. I'm just checking - how's our boy?"

"Not good. He was at a funeral and got into it with one of the other mourners."

"What happened? What caused it?"

"I'm not exactly sure." Chris said because he couldn't out and out lie to Josiah and say he didn't know. "Vin's - _resting_ - now. If you can spare me, I'd like to hang out here for awhile, see if I can get him to come over for dinner later on."

"Take all the time you need. We've got things covered here. Tell him I've got my world famous ice cream cake for dessert."

"I will."

"Tell him we're all worried about him too." Josiah added, more seriously. "If he needs anything he only has to ask."

"I'll tell him. I'll see you in a while."

Chris hung up and checked the pizza again. It seemed pretty close so he turned the heat off and shut the oven door. Someone knocked on the front door and when he went to answer it, Vin was coming down the stairs, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. The stairs were too dark to get a good look at his face.

"It's probably the pharmacy." Vin said. His voice sounded heavy.

"Let me take care of it." Chris said, and Vin gave him the money.

"It's a five dollar co-pay, and I give him a couple bucks tip."

So Chris took care of the transaction and when he shut the door and turned back, Vin had sat down on the stairs and was leaning his head against the wall.

"I'm sorry to drag you away from work and keep you here." Vin said. "Invite you in for lunch, then I abandon you."

"I've got the cell phone, if they need me they can reach me. This is bound to be hard for you, Vin. You should've told me. I would've gone to the hospital with you. I would've gone to the funeral with you."

Vin only shrugged and kept his eyes turned down.

"The pizza's almost ready." Chris went on. "C'mon down and let's have some lunch. Then we've got a bed with your name on it back at the '_ranch'_."

"Yeah, give me a minute."

"Sure."

Chris took the pizza out of the oven and set it on the table to cut into slices. In a minute or two, Vin joined him. He didn't look up at Chris; he kept his eyes on the table even after Chris said the blessing and they began to eat.

They were surprised by another knock on the front door.

"I'm not expecting anybody." Vin said.

"I'll see who it is."

When Chris opened the door, he knew right away who was standing there. With two black eyes, one split lip, and an obviously broken nose, it had to be the fella Vin had fought with at the church.

"I'm looking for Vin Tanner?" the man said. Completely opposite to what Chris expected, he sounded hesitant, even a little unsure of himself. He was dressed in a suit but was missing his tie at his blood stained collar. With his longer hair and in need of a shave, he seemed a little out of place in the suit.

"I'm a friend of Vin's, can I help you?"

"I meant to give him this at the church." He held out a large manila envelope. "It's from Em. He'll know."

Chris stepped out onto the porch to take it. "What happened this morning?" he asked.

"What happened this morning was my fault."

"That's not what Vin said. He said he started it."

"It didn't start this morning." The man said, shaking his head. "You give that to him for me? For Em? He'll know."

With that, he walked away to his car parked a few houses down. Chris went back inside. Vin had come halfway into the front room.

"What'd he want?"

"Just to give you this. It's from Em he said."

Vin looked at the envelope like it might be booby-trapped.

"Y'can just set it on the end table there. I'll take care of it later."

"OK."

They went back to the table and the pizza and after taking another bite and chewing on it awhile, Vin said,

"I didn't need it you know. The shock therapy. He was only just saying that."

"I didn't think you needed it."

"I was depressed, and they had me on medication and counseling and they put me in the hospital once, but they never talked about shock therapy. At least they never told me about it." The words came out fast, like Vin thought he had to convince Chris.

"Kids say mean things, he was just being mean to you." Chris figured now wasn't the time to ask about Vin being hospitalized for depression when he was a kid. He'd never mentioned it before but now just wasn't the time to ask about it.

"He's not mean anymore." Vin said.

"He didn't seem to be just now." Chris agreed.

"At the church he was – he said – he seemed -." Vin swallowed and looked at Chris. "I think I'm not a nice person. I always thought I was, but now I don't think I am."

"Vin – you were at a funeral. A woman you cared a lot about and who cared about you died. You can't count high emotions at a time like that."

"I started a fight with him right there at the church."

"He had to have done something, or said _something_ to get you riled."

"He said he was sorry that he'd been mean to me when I was a kid, that he hoped I could forgive him, and that Em would be real glad that I was there."

"_Okaaaay_." Chris said. He drew the word out. "And which one of those sentiments was the one that pushed you over the edge?"

Vin didn't answer right away and it looked like he might cry again.

"I thought I was special to her." He said.

"And he said you weren't?" Chris couldn't get away from thinking that somehow this other guy must've started the whole thing.

"No, he said I was. He said I was special to Em and that she was always talking about me."

Chris was about to ask if he'd said that sarcastically or _what_, but then he figured they'd just be going around in more circles if he did ask.

"What's his name? This guy?"

"Mark. Marcus Wright."

"Did you know he was one of your Em's foster kids?"

"No, not 'til I saw him at the hospital. Em never really talked about the other kids she'd had. She'd make you – she made _me_ - feel like I was the only kid she ever had."

"And you think you're less special because this guy was one of her kids?" Chris asked.

"I know it's stupid."

"It's not stupid. If it's how you feel it's not stupid. You're allowed to feel _whatever_ you feel."

"I just wanted to feel special to somebody." Vin said. He flushed dark red under his bruises and hurried on. "Not that I didn't figure any kid she had was special but just to find out that he was one of her kids and if _he_ was special then maybe it just didn't mean anything anyway and it was just some kinda stupid child psychology she used just to get us through her door and out of her life and maybe it didn't mean anything to her."

"You mean – you think maybe _you_ didn't mean anything to her." Chris said.

"The only two ways to survive in foster care are to either take up all the attention or none of it. So I always tried real hard to not be noticed. I got picked on and I ignored it. I got blamed for stuff that wasn't my fault and I took it. I got moved from home to home and school to school and I learned to not get attached to anything or anybody.

"Then Em took me in and made me feel like I mattered. She _said_ I mattered. She said I was the best kid she'd ever known and I figured all those years of falling into the background finally paid off, finally made sense. All these last ten years I've been holding onto that, thinking that I really did matter because I mattered to _her_. Even when I lost my job and was living on the street, as long as I thought I was special to Em, nothing was unbearable."

"Now what do you think? That if Marcus Wright, the meanest kid on the block, could matter to Em, then her regard couldn't be worth much after all?"

"I know it's stupid."

"Not if it's how you feel."

"I honestly don't know how I feel." Vin said. He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a long breath.

"So what's Marcus Wright's story?" Chris asked. "Aside from being the meanest kid on the block. Do you know?"

"Yeah. At the church, any one of her kids who wanted to could get up and talk about her. Officer Blanding, he was one of her kids, too. Anyway, Mark said that after he left Em he got into drugs and got into trouble and went to prison for a couple years. When he got out he kept in touch with her while he was trying to get his life straightened out. I guess he's been part of her life ever since. Now he manages a restaurant. The funeral lunch was gonna be at his restaurant."

"Vin -." Chris took a guess that didn't seem so wild. "Are you angry with yourself because you didn't keep in touch with Em? You think maybe because you fell out of touch with her that she stopped caring about you?"

The tears that had been threatening Vin spilled over.

"I didn't even say goodbye to her. All she ever did for me, she changed my life and made me feel like somebody worthwhile for the first time in my life and I didn't say goodbye to her. What kind of person does that make me? How could she still care about me when she must've thought I didn't care enough about her to say goodbye."

"She still cared." Chris said. "For someone to bring as much change into a person's life as you've told me she brought to yours, that can't be faked. If it was fake, she would've burned out on all the Marcus Wrights that came before you. If she said you were the best kid she ever knew, she was telling the truth because a mother who loves her kids that much will never lie to them. And if she loved you – and I know she did – she would never stop loving you no matter what you did or didn't do. Whether you were homeless or President, mothers never stop loving their sons. Love is the only thing death doesn't take from us."

"Okay." Vin finally managed to say. His voice was choked.

"Okay?" Chris asked, mostly because he couldn't believe it'd been that easy. Vin nodded as though Chris had been asking for confirmation.

"Yeah. Okay. That makes sense." He wiped his eyes. "I still feel bad not saying goodbye to her."

"She knows. Mothers know everything."

"Yeah." Vin stood up from the table. "Reckon I'll see what's in the package." He retrieved it from the front room and brought it back to the table. He gave it to Chris. "Can you open it for me?"

"Sure."

Inside was a framed picture and a note written in a very shaky hand.

"When did you say you went to the hospital?" Chris asked.

"Last Saturday, why?"

Chris handed him the note. "It's dated Sunday." He was pretty sure that behind the bruises Vin'd gone pale.

"She saw me at the hospital." Vin said, reading the note. "She says – said – she said she loves me and she knows I love her and nothing will ever change it. She says this is her favorite picture of the best kid she ever knew." He looked at it. "We took this last year."

He held the picture up for Chris to see. It was Vin standing on a lawn next to a tall woman with horn rimmed glasses and gray hair. On the lawn around them were scattered dozens of plastic pink flamingoes and a large sign _"Happy 75th birthday to the World's Greatest Mom."_

Engraved around the silver frame were the words, '_Love will not forsake you on the last day that you live - you can take it with you when you go.'  
_  
"That's a country song, isn't it?" Chris asked.

"Yeah. Em loved country music. She always liked that song particular." He read the words again and asked Chris, "This is what you were trying to tell me isn't it? What Em wrote here."

"But I think she said it better."

"Yeah." Vin swallowed. "She loved me."

"_Loves_ you."

"Yeah, she loves me."

The end


End file.
